


Losing Information: The Equifax Story

by 2manycharacters



Category: Equifax, Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2manycharacters/pseuds/2manycharacters
Summary: How my letter to Equifax was lost and never recovered.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Losing Information: The Equifax Story

Mary sighed again as she hauled the large bag of mail from the delivery ramp. No one else, not even the driver, helped her. Staffing cuts hadn’t helped and now with this… pandemic, she was left alone to do all the work. At least it wasn’t hot this early in the morning. The elevator sputtered to life, bringing Mary and her cargo to the mail room. Doors opening, Mary pushed the cart full of mail to the sorting room for her coworkers to help out.

“Mary! Thanks for the delivery! Make sure to wash your hands before you go!”

Mary rolled her eyes and silently sighed. Matthew. Recently, he had taken it upon himself to be the hygiene “expert”. Such a suck up. _Couldn’t I just do my job in peace?_

“I will, thanks.”

Matt opened his mouth, but Mary put her earbuds in. She shuffled over to her desk and sorted through the mail. The volume of mail had increased, almost 50%, because everyone had all this time on their hands. Some people, realizing their credit information was all wrong, made all this extra work for Mary. She started multiple piles for the files. Trash, for envelopes that arrived too damaged. Open, for envelopes that looked fine and that were addressed correctly to the Security Department. Send back, for those that were addressed wrong or were sent to the wrong department.

“Trash. Open. Send Back. Send Back. Open. Trash.”

“Everyone listen up! Team meeting!”

Their supervisor, José, yelled from his small office. With the new restrictions and cleaning routines, he had been more stressed than usual. Walking over to the common area between all the cubicles, Mary crossed her arms and listened.

“Alright, alright, alright. Word from upstairs. They REALLY don’t want an outbreak to happen here, so, of course, they’re saying we need to protect ourselves. To do so, they’re putting hand washing signs up in every bathroom. In addition, they want all outside mail screened BEFORE we accept it. That means— ”

“How are we goin’ to do that? You got a COVID scanner back there, José?” Mary said.

José said, “Ha! No. That’s why I called a meeting. We need some ideas. You guys have any?”

Mary didn’t need to scan the room to know who would raise their hand.

“Matt?” José gestured towards the teenager. “What’s your idea?”

“We could wipe down all envelopes with a cleaning rag!” Matt replied, his genuine smile beaming like a child who brings their parents a mud pie.

People in front of Mary groaned, or hung their head, or stared at the ceiling. Mary rolled her eyes. _How do we still git our job done?_ Mary raised her hand.

“Mary?”

“We don’ need to wash every envelope. The virus only lives on paper for three hours. The mail takes longer to get to us from wherever it come from.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” José rubbed his chin stubble. “Alright, here’s the plan. We’re not doing anything different for the papermail. Anything else needs to be wiped down before we do something with it. At the very least, management has given us some money to spend on this. I purchased disposable gloves, some cleaning solutions, and rags. Matt, since you’ve been very diligent with the cleanliness of our part of the company, you’re first on cleaning duty.”

Matt pumped his fist in victory, like a frat pledge chosen to do a keg stand. The young 19 year old had been looking for his first opportunity for responsibility. Mary celebrated an internal victory. At least she hadn’t been chosen first. She still had another question.

“What do we do with mail already sorted? I’ve gon’ through some letters already.”

“I’ll leave that to Matt, since he’s responsible for the screening.”

“Ah yeeeah!” Matt said, pumping his fist again.

“Come get it from my desk then, Mail Cleana Man,” Mary said.

Matt ran over to her desk, grabbed all six letters, and immediately threw them in the trash at his desk.

“Matt, you didn’t even put on gloves. How are you supposed to clean when you ain’t even doing it right?” Mary asked.

“Oops! You’re right! Gotta go wash my hands! You should, too. Don’t touch your face!” Matt yelled as he ran towards the bathroom.

Mary sighed, squirting hand sanitizer and rubbing it into her hands. It would be a long day at Equifax.


End file.
